Remember when we found misery?

“I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back any more / the feeling that I could last for ever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effort / to death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expires / and expires, too soon, too soon / before life itself.”
- Joseph Conrad

I think I've found it again.

18+3

Jolyn and Suimin turn 21. Hihi, legal adulthood.

Honey, it's Decadence

Because you keep dead bees and because we almost got caught in the demon lift that stopped at the 14 and 7/8th storey.

FUCKMEBABYCAKES?!

There are moments when you look like a harpooned seal.
- refusal to consume fibre
- dragging of feet
- "fuck it's hot"
- "why?" (silence) "why?"
- lousy neck massages
- tripping over air
- extreme paranoia of lurking bangla aircon repair man
- intense, uncontrollable shivering of left cheek upon giving a weak smile

And moments when you gleam like a, well, un-harpooned virgin white seal sunbathing on the golden beach.
- buying a tarragon plant
- mixing yummy cocktails
- singing a line in perfect tune once in a while
- DIY coffee grinder cover from an unwanted lid
- warm feet in airconditioned rooms
- "I used to like Maggie Gyllenhaal..."



- offering to piggyback me in Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken
- piggybacking me in real life

People get crushed like biscuit crumbs

What's left unforgotten? Blades of grass, your 4th kiss, packets of candies left in the fridge from a mere acquaintance's birthday party last year (long expired), fingerprints left on the glass wardrobe of a neighbourhood furniture store, your spare keys, your bank account number, your ambitions. People forget because they don't possess these things, they don't think it's important, or they don't think it's important anymore. They've conveniently let go of these smallest of memories along with their morning pee that goes trinkling down the drain. Crawlers grow around fences, people grow around memories. It's our foundation, we build our lives on it. And if one day the fence shall fall and our memories shall subside, what would then become of us crawlers?

"THIS IS NOT A CHAIR!"
"THIS IS NOT A TABLE!"

I have started eating cereal bars for breakfast. (No, not even yoghurt bars, just cereal bars that are dry and bland and look like a compact rectangular form of hamster bedding.) Because they are convenient, and they taste like crap. As I get closer to legal adulthood, I've began to show appreciation for food that taste like crap. Pig liver, blue cheese, bad coffee and... olives. For some reasons they satisfy me in a way that many amazing things in life (roast chicken, rainy nights, bubble baths, etc) have failed to. Maybe they taste like disappointment, they taste like a terrifying kind of feeling you clearly can sense but cannot grasp, like trying to reach out and do a high-five with the reflection of yourself behind the mirror opposite the mirror you're standing in front of. Taking a bite out of a rectangular chunk of compact hamster bedding might just bring that reflection one step closer, and regretfully, this is a sort of comfort that I cannot seek or find from anyone or anywhere else, not even from the precious people whom I adore the most.

"I! HAVE! NOT! BEEN! UNHAPPY! MY! WHOLE! LIFE!"

From 21 to 25, from 25 to 29

My mom has been a little too into fortune telling lately, or specifically onomatology, or some ridiculous system to attribute certain scores to people's Chinese names. The higher your score, the better your life would be! Tadah. When I returned home Friday night after a sheesha session at Haji Lane (and 3 hours of waiting for a sumptuous Egyptian platter and Eric's shawarma (or what Yingying would like to call alima) that never arrived - talk about bad service), smelling like a piece of smoked meat soaked in beer, I found out that she has given a name for her potential grandchild.

"I have spent the past 3 days calculating and decided on a name for your child. It's 96 points."
"MOM?!?!?!"
"What"
"CAN YOU NOT BE LIKE THIS??!!??!?!?!"
"Like what"
"Like, CRAZY???!"
"Anyway it has all the 5 elements aligned in the right places so your child will have the best luck ever."

Every night she sits on the left edge of our leather sofa with her mini maroon laptop placed on the coffee table and her glasses resting on her cheekbones, then reads people's fortunes and 8 characters from some dubious, tacky Chinese website out loud (btw, Chinese characters on websites always look like ants to me), as if deliberately having a war with the newscaster on TV to see who gets more attention. I have to pretend that I'm listening intently, I always do. It's the least I can do to clock in some time for my mother-daughter bonding sessions which have become so rare. Slowly and sadly everything will dissolve into a drone, and my mind would drift off to somewhere else, occasionally turning my focus back onto her lips but only getting a fuzzy, uncertain McGurk effect. Which is slightly hypnotic. "Mmm, ya, yes. Mmm. Oh. Wow. Ya." That's all I would say before I go to bed all dreamy-eyed and gawky like a confused baby bear.

-----

I stepped onto Jean's insect glue trap today, for the millionth time. He has them all around the house as if he's afraid of getting eaten up by tiny flying bugs overnight. Usually it gets onto one toe or two but today it smeared across half my foot. He then sat me down and took a wet towel to gently wash it off for me. I think I melted inside for a while, even though I often see myself as the more masculine, and bastardy one in this relationship.

Pi seconds

I watched Moneyball, and Tomboy, and 5cm Per Second this weekend.



I was crying throughout 25% of the movie. Jean heard me sniffing at first so he handed me a piece of tissue and then I started bawling like there's no tomorrow. As a judgemental person who has always thought Animes are lame, this totally puts me to shame. Oh, and we cooked portobello mushrooms with goats cheese. Tastes like heaven. I think we outdo ourselves every week.

Happy Varentines

I really enjoy writing letters.